GREMLINS (1984) - I was really afraid this wouldn't hold up, but it was great. I never liked the "my father died in a chimney" sequence, and it has impacted my memory of the film. It seems like the one element where the humor tipped into the wrong direction. It still doesn't work, but it doesn't ruin the movie.

The puppetry and practical effects are fantastic - they shoot Gizmo from the perfect distance so we never see his lips not moving to Howie Mandel's voice over.

I love that Don Steele is the radio DJ on this. Since he is featured in archive form in Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD, you could watch them back to back and have a Real Don Steele double feature!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011) and MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (2012) - Have you all heard of these movies? These little sleepers are quite good :-) My cable company opened up Epix for free, so it was fun to watch these back to back. There have been so many exceptional Marvel movies since these that these don't usually go to the top of my re-watch list. They were exceptional and I am glad I made a double feature of it.

JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE (2016) - Amy Berg's wonderful bio of Janis Joplin, which aired as part of PBS's AMERICAN MASTERS series. What a gigantic talent, and she came into her own just as the end was near. There is an alternate reality where she gets to grow old, but drugs and lonliness are a tragic combination.

Didn't rate this as a kid, still don't rate it now. I like the theme tune; I like the film's scenario; in fact, I like the film well enough all the way up to landing on the World Trade Center; and I also think the final few minutes of the film are really rather fine...

...but...

the central part -- everything inside the wall in Manhattan -- is, in my opinion, a mess. I also think the character of Snake Plissken is overrated. Over the years, Plissken has developed a rep as being one of cinema's great characters, but really there's not all that much there, beyond an eyepatch, a cynical attitude and a Clint Eastwood whisper. Just in the handful of films made by the Carpenter/Russell team-up there are better characters. Much prefer Jack Burton or R.J. MacReady.

I was watching a documentary on you tube yesterday about the FX in the original trilogy and there was a bit where Phil Tippet said the Tauntaun is basically a horse and then talked about how they had produced numerous designs and George Lucas picked the one he liked best. And that made me think about how they had just plunked what were basically actual horses into The Rise of Skywalker. ESB took a route that was incredibly difficult for the filmmakers; a route that was much more expensive and time-consuming, but they did it because they wanted to make the planet more alien and the film, consequently, more convincing. I think it's a revealing comparison.

Anya Taylor-Joy* is the titular character in this lighthearted adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen. My friend Sue, who is a HUGE Austen fan, informs me it's quite faithful to the book. I was surprised, since I do not think of Austen as writing comedy.

Especially entertaining for the language.

(That . is actually in the title, btw.)

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* I find her face fascinating. Her eyes are so wide apart, she looks as if she is about to transform into something.

Peter, the whole design ethic for TROS seemed to be Ďthatíll doíThe horses, as you mention above.

But for me, itís the Star Destroyers. Now I love Star Destroyers. So I was pleased to see them. To then learn that they are NOT ISD I Star Destroyers with a Death Star laser strapped to them but are in face supposed to be a lot, lot larger than ISD Is.